Welfare Reform Bill

I am sympathetic to what my hon. Friend says, although I suspect that it would be difficult to find one person with enough knowledge of these matters to be an expert. What we need is much better signposting for people, and a much better exposition of their rights and means of redress. The benefits system still has many barriers that hinder people's return to work. Instead of being an inducement to people to try out work, the 51 different income disregards often are an impediment. There is an interesting debate to be had about mini-jobs—for instance, lone parents are not allowed to work between four and 16 hours a week. Although we must be cognisant of the danger that people will merely get a series of mini-jobs and not engage with the welfare system, flexibility must be the key word for personal advisers. If a mini-job is going to help someone move to more permanent employment, it must be allowed. After all, tools such as mini-jobs, disregards and access to education and training will all be used by private providers. The benefits system does not allow much in the way of education and training. Why should people be able to access things that will help them to get employment after 12 months out of work, but not in the first six to nine months? We need to rethink where the rules and regulations came from. Many have been in existence for 30 or 40 years, and are no longer relevant to today's labour market and work force. Perhaps we should set some of them aside, or at least give personal advisers more flexibility to support people in doing educational or training courses that will make them more employable. Two years ago, the Department for Work and Pensions contracted for 40,000 places on courses teaching English as a second language, but only 15,000 were taken up. Employment among certain ethnic minorities is far too low, but although many people say that the barrier is the English language, why are they not taking up the courses on offer? Is it a failure by the Department or by the individuals involved? The Government provided the funding and secured the places, yet 60 per cent. have not been used, so there is clearly a problem. It is becoming more and more crucial as the recession develops that people get a skills audit and that any skills deficit is made up. In my Jobcentre Plus area, there are almost exactly the same number of jobs to be filled as there are jobseeker's allowance claimants, but there is a significant difference between the skills of people on the claimant count and the skills needed in the available employment. The more that we join the Leitch agenda with the welfare reform agenda, in the spirit of joined-up government, the more we will remove some of the silly barriers that exist between the learning and skills councils, the regional development agencies and the colleges. By making them work for people, and not for themselves as providers, we will improve our chance to give people the tools and skills that they need to get back into work. I know that time is short, so I shall conclude by saying that we must press whoever in the Treasury is in charge of the child care tax credit review to publish it. Sadly, it has been a significant failure, with only a third of people entitled to child care tax credit actually taking it up. We know that, for many people, child care is the key to getting employment, so if it is a policy failure, let us change the policy so that it helps rather than impedes people. As I said at the start of my speech, I support the general thrust of the Bill. We must work on the basis that people who lose their jobs will suffer only a temporary loss. We must get them back into work as fast as possible, but it is also important, especially for people with mental illness, that we continue to support them after they get back to work, because we must make sure that people stay in their jobs.